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Launch of new Sunday Sentinel

The three sections of the launch edition of the Sunday Sentinel


Sitting on the shelves of newsagents and supermarkets around North Staffordshire yesterday was a new player in the Sunday paper market.

Sentinel Sunday, the first new Sunday paper to be launched this millennium, had a distinctly different look to its national competitors – but at the same time bore all the hallmarks of a quality broadsheet read.

Produced by Northcliffe Newspaper’s Sentinel, in Stoke-on-Trent, it had virtually no resemblance to the Monday to Saturday tabloid – although the same staff from the same offices produced it.

The paper led with a national story about BMW’s sell-off of Rover. It covered the Prime Minister’s views as voiced at a conference in Oxford on Saturday.

The page one picture, by Horace Wetton, was a striking image of mirror reflections taken at the Potteries Shopping Centre, Hanley, where Keele University students had organised a series of hands-on experiments for shoppers as part of National Science Week.

Above the fold was a local story involving a Stoke-on-Trent MP accusing Tony Blair and Gordon Brown of being seduced by the glamour of e-commerce at the expense of industry.

The third main story on page one was the national tale of the dramatic rescue of a computer expert from his kidnappers at a Kent hotel on Friday evening.

By way of introducing itself, there was a small page one editorial, and a cartoon about the launch from the “MayunMarLady” series – a popular feature of the Monday to Saturday Sentinel, which features a married couple speaking in broad Staffordshire dialect.

In the editorial, readers were told: “Our aim is to bring you a unique package of local and national news and sport, jobs and business coverage, complemented by the best feature-writing on matters relevant to North Staffordshire readers.

“Our tone will be in a more reflective Sunday tradition but with a vitality, irreverence and sense of fun we hope you will come to anticipate and enjoy.”

The main broadsheet news section ran to 28-pages, with one of the highlights being a viewpoint column by Sentinel features editor Peter Bossley.

Also included were features on gardening, travel, as well as puzzles and TV listings.

The rest of the 35p package – which editor Sean Dooley set out to make great value for money – was made up of an 18-page broadsheet business section, printed on pink paper, and a 24-page sports tabloid on green paper which mixed local and national reports and results.

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